As should be evident to anyone who is not in denial and is willing to credit the evidence mounting by the day, the West is now under siege. Paradoxically, it appears to be increasingly at the mercy not only of radical Islam, but of its own anomie and its blatant philistinism. Indeed the former preys relentlessly upon the latter as it does upon the ineluctable corollary of cultural weakness, the presumably tolerant and progressive ethos of so-called “liberal” thinking. “Something stirs in the East, a sleepless malice” says one of the characters in The Lord of the Rings. What stirs in the West, however, is a growing tendency to fall asleep, a kind of spiritual encephalitis generating an epidemic of lethargy before reality and accompanied by various spastic maneuvers intended to disguise the truth.

Reasonable people can have little sympathy with the feverish pack of journalists, academics, and intellectuals who believe that 9/11 was payback for America’s supposed colonial iniquities and who argue that the reaction of the Islamic world is understandable. Their number is legion but a few instances of such chicanery will serve to fill out the picture.

On September 16, just five days after the carnage visited upon an unprepared America, Edward Said published a Comment in The Observer in which, while professing concern for the dead and injured, he went on to deprecate an American “superpower almost constantly at war…all over the Islamic world,” its “ignorance of Islam that takes new forms every day,” and “the influence of oil, defence and Zionist lobbies.” Advising his readers to avoid fictive constructions that only complicate the issue — this from Said! — he placed 9/11 in the context of “the Iraqi people’s suffering under US-imposed sanctions” and, of course, the “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories,” concluding that the “roots of terror” lay in “injustice.” No one seemed to notice that this was the rhetoric of the ideological scavenger, picking over the carcasses to feed his hatred and fatten his agenda.

Similarly, in an article titled “The Spirit of Terrorism” for Le Monde of November 2, 2001, the cynosure of the postmodern Left, French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, wrote of the “prodigious jubilation of seeing this global superpower destroyed”; he went on to explain that “this is the one which, in its unbearable power, has fomented all this violence that is innate the world over.” His colleague Jacques Derrida, a fixture on the American university circuit, refers to the date 9/11 as a “telegram of metonymy” which merely “points out the unqualifiable by recognizing that we do not recognize or even cognize that we do not yet know how to qualify.” Or in plain language, we are too dumb not to deserve what we got coming.

As for the sheer madness of Noam Chomsky’s predictable ramblings faulting the U.S. for its ostensibly genocidal campaigns, these have already been deconstructed in many different places and can be shunted aside as nothing more than the intellectual refuse he unfailingly produces. Nevertheless, his absurd maunderings have been disproportionately influential.

These are only a mere handful of such righteous denunciations of the American hegemon and the ongoing whitewash of Islam as either a “religion of peace” or, conversely, as the faith of a much maligned and suffering people taking legitimate revenge on their tormentors. The beat continues even to this day, a decade later, as our “progressive” elites, typified by such pro-Islamic stalwarts as Jimmy Carter, John Esposito, Michael Moore, Faiz Shakir, and innumerable others, insist on laundering such radical organizations as the Muslim Brotherhood, re-interpreting jihad as an inner struggle waged in the soul of the believer, and deploring (a non-existent) “Islamophobia” for which they hold anybody and everybody responsible except the terrorists themselves.

Even the American president is complicit. The Obama administration’s attempt to elutriate the meaning of 9/11 by calling terrorist acts “man-caused disasters,” scrubbing allusions to Islamic terrorism in its official documents, and treating the observance of 9/11 not as a day of memory and reflection but as a “day of service” promoting Obama’s pet projects, as enumerated in his weekly address of August 27, namely, “clean energy, energy efficiency, health care,” etc., are, according to Matthew Vadum, author of Subversion Inc., part of an effort “to suck the meaning out of 9/11.” Obama’s purpose, says Vadum, is “to dumb down the nation and turn [a] solemn annual commemoration” into something that “glosses over both the horrors of that day and the evil intentions of the Islamofascist barbarians who made them happen.”

19 Comments, 11 Threads

1.
Theresa

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY IN THE NAME OF ISLAM

1) The September 11 2001 massacre was done ‘in the name of Islam.’
By Bin Laden’s open declared “holy war” Jihad against Christians and Jews, as he openly admitted the crime as a jihad. [books.google.com/books?id=fNqdmUnqTJUC&pg=PA70] In fact, Bin Laden denounced US ‘ presence in Saudi Arabia already in 1994 [books.google.com/books?id=kpHaCDAQcgUC&pg=PA301].

2) By ringleader of the 19 Arab-Islamic hijackers: Mohammed Atta, who gave directions to shout “Allah Akbar.” [books.google.com/books?id=c6obAQAAMAAJ&q=atta] [nytimes.com/2002/07/07/books/chapters/0707-1st-dsouz.html?pagewanted=2] [guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/30/terrorism.september113]

2) And as al-Qaeda terrorists bragged on al-Jazeera shouting just that [edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/12/alqaeda.911.claim] when they saw the images of the flying planes into the buildings that butchered 3,000 and injured 6,000 innocent people.

3) Just as the (grandchildren of Arab immigrants who use civilians causing their deaths in order to appear as “victims.” Those that call themselves since 1960s exclusively as) “Palestinians” celebrated the attacks shouting “Allah akbar.” [nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0911.html] [pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/israel.palestine/campagna.html]

It is unfortunate that we spend so much time and effort countering the inanities of the left, but it is an inescapable feature of life that these people will never completely go away until the human race is a lot smarter than it is now.

And, until that utopia arrives, leftist will not be acknowledging, even if they have a secret inkling that it is true, that Jihad is bound up in the doctrines of Islam. To admit to such a belief means that that they have been fundamentally in error about something that is blindingly obvious to the rest of us. And admitting to a failure of judgment of this magnitude not only seems to be too painful for them, but in some way they understand that to do so might actually be harmful to their mental health.

The “root cause” of Islamic terrorism is our failure to put a stop to it with firm and uncompromising resolve. Islam is not a religion in the sense of the word that we understand in the West. Rather, Islam is an expansionist, enemy, totalitarian political ideology that seeks to eliminate everything outside of itself. The Qur’an requires Muslims to be the enemy of unbelievers (meaning us), whether they show it on the surface or not. And there are reasons why unobservant Muslims can easily become radicalized at any time.

To me 9/11 was the perfect example of what happens when a super power over reacts. RIP to all those that died, suffered and suffer still.

Gen. Hayden said it best during his CNN interview today, when he said the next terrorist attack will happen, it’s how we react and deal with it that’s important.

Do we use a scapel or another sword? Our next reaction has to be balanced. CT is not the only means to prevent and deter, we need to interact more with others, volunteer in a Mosque, learn Arabic. Love one another.

Maria Gonzalez said, “Hate begets hate.” This meme works only if it works. Otherwise, it is naive or stupid or disastrous or suicidal. Sometimes you can only try love or forbearance or tolerance once. If it fails, then you become a victim of the much abhorred “Social Darwinism.” In short, you get eaten for lunch. Now, Maria, if you, your children and grandchildren would like to take up residence as a Christian or a Jewish family in Iraq or Saudi Arabia and then report back to us on your experiences, we will be glad to read your postings.

Bin Laden intentionally started the war with the US to destroy us as a nation. You have to ask yourself if this country is stronger now or before 9/11. If you think that we are weaker, then you realize that Bin Laden’s intentions are being realized.

We started off with three thoughtful posts, who let the loons out? There is a bumper sticker answer for every point, it is never right but at least once in a while funny. There are also too thought through answers which never lead to decisions. Though shalt not kill sounds good but when facing those who have been taught from birth that the only holy goal is to murder infidels, one may be at a disadvantage. I lean toward more nukes, fewer ambassadors. I know I may be wrong but I still want them to keep thinking that is my belief

“…nonsense that is passionately endorsed by a large segment of North American and European society, attesting to the leverage wielded by an adulterous media and a failed political and intellectual class upon a susceptible public…the academics, the intellectuals, the oligarchs, and the commissars have the neo-socialist, postmodern, university-indoctrinated, anti-American crowd with them. Together, they have put the democratic West at risk…”

If I hear you right, David, you are suggesting that the corruption has sunk into the American bone and marrow and we are long past band-aid solutions. Radical problems require radical solutions. Leftism and secular humanism in our institutions and our society must be torn out root and branch. Comes a time for pitchforks and torches.

HOW TO SOLVE AMERICA’S TERRORISM PROBLEM IN 5 EASY STEPS by Craig Biddle

Here is how America could solve her terrorism problem in 5 easy steps:

1. Stop sacrificing American soldiers to bring “freedom” to savages in Iraq. Pull our soldiers out of that hellhole, and let the savages have their civil war. ( Iraq is not and never was the main source of terrorism against America. Iran and Saudi Arabia are.)

2. Declare war on Iran.

3. Obliterate, from high altitude and long distance, all known Iranian military assets, all Iranian government buildings, all Iranian mosques and madrassahs, and the residences of all Iranian leaders, imams, clerics, and government officials. Hit these targets when they are most likely to be occupied (e.g., mosques during the day and residences at night). Do not send soldiers in on foot, except as necessary to identify targets or gather intelligence. We do not need to send soldiers in on foot to fight, and it would be immoral to do so. We have many big missiles, fast planes, and good bombs, and we should use these liberally while building bigger, faster, and better ones. (As to innocent non-Americans, such as Iranian children, who would be killed in such a campaign, they are not properly the concern of our government. Nor would their deaths be the fault of our government. Such deaths are always the fault of the force-initiating regime—and of those who in any way support or enable it—whose actions necessitate such retaliatory measures.)

4. Airdrop leaflets across the Middle East explaining: “From now on, this is how America will respond to any and all threats to her citizens or allies. We look forward to the time when you decide to civilize yourselves, stop taking religion seriously, renounce the initiation of physical force, recognize the principle of individual rights, establish rule of law, and join the free world. Until then, we will be watching you from way up in the sky—higher even than Allah, by means of technology He cannot fathom—and if we see anything that we so much as feel might conceivably pose even a remote threat either to America or to our allies, we will annihilate it and everything in its proximity without further warning.”

5. Notify the regime in Saudi Arabia that it got lucky and has the option of not being obliterated; that we are prepared instead to seize “its” oil fields and sell them to private industry, in part to pay for the campaign against Iran, and in part to return the fields to private industry where they belong; that it has 24 hours to turn the fields over to our agents; and that if it fails to comply or ignites the fields or does anything to thwart our program, its leaders, like those of Iran, will meet Allah sooner than later.

If we took these (or similar) measures, our terrorism problem would be solved. Sure, there would still be a few isolated instances of terrorism here and there in months and years to come; this much is inevitable given how long we have permitted the Islamists to plan and plot and establish cells. But, so long as we follow through as indicated above and immediately destroy anything that we think looks even remotely threatening, state sponsorship of terrorism against America would be over; the major threat to our lives would be gone.

Of course, we will not take such measures any time soon. Altruism will not let us. We will not take such measures until there is widespread understanding of the moral rightness of doing so—that is, until a substantial number of Americans understand that self-interest is moral and self-sacrifice is evil—and we are a long way from that. But such measures are morally correct—they are what we should do—and everyone who understands that they are should say so loudly and clearly. By placing such actions on the table for discussion, we create an opportunity to explain why they are morally correct—and that is what Americans (and westerners in general) most desperately need to learn.